Solutions for Outlook Error “Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook Window”

One of the main causes for the Outlook Error “Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook” is a corrupted Navigation Pane settings file – profilename.xml, where “profilename” is the name of your Outlook profile. When the file size shows 0 KB, it indicates that the file is corrupted. Outlook version 2003 and above (up to latest 2016) can get affected by this error anytime. The error message may vary for each version.

 

Quick Solution

EdbMails for OST to PST Converter is a free tool to convert orphaned OST Files to PST. Also, you can perform OST file migration to Live Exchange or to Office 365.

This error may occur in below cases too.

• when you use a profile from an older outlook version
• when you run the Outlook in Compatibility mode
• When you uninstall and reinstall the Microsoft incorrectly and there is some damage issue.
• When the .PST or .OST file gets deleted

There are few fixes to get rid of this Outlook error. Let’s look into them one by one.

Fix – 1:- Repair the navigation pane settings file

Check below steps to repair or recover the navigation pane settings file

1. Click the start and Run in Windows XP. Click the Start button and search in case if you are using windows 7 or 8 or vista.
2. Enter “outlook.exe /resetnavpane” in the search box and Enter. (the space between outlook.exe and /resetnavpane is important and mandatory)

In Windows 7 or Windows 8, you can follow below method too.

• Click the Start menu and then click the All Programs > Accessories > Run.
• Enter “outlook.exe /resetnavpane” and then click OK.

If you fail to recover the navigation pane settings file, try to delete the outlook.xml file which stores the settings of navigation pane using below steps. (Consider this method when only nothing else works)

1. Click the start and Run in Windows XP system. Click the Start button and search in case if you are using windows 7 or 8 or vista.
2. Enter “%appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook” and hit Enter.
3. Delete Outlook.xml file from the file list opened

Fix – 2:- Start Outlook in Safe Mode and Disable the extensions (or add-ins)

Start your outlook without any extensions installed which lets you identify if there is any issue caused by those extensions.

To start the outlook in safe mode,

1. Click the Start button and then click the Run option
2. Enter “Outlook /safe” and then click OK
3. Select the Profile – Outlook (default) from Choose Profiles window and click OK
4. Enter the password and click the Accept button.

To Disable Outlook Add-ins,

1. Open Outlook and click File menu.
2. Click Options and click Add-ins.
3. In the View & Manage Office Add-ins, check whether it shows COM Add-ins and click Go.
4. When the “COM Add-ins” list is displayed, make a note of all the listed Add-ins.

Once done, uncheck selected check boxes and click OK. Make sure that you are just disabling the Add-ins not delete.

Alternatively, use “outlook.exe /noextensions” command to start the Outlook without any add-ins.

If outlook works well in safe mode, then it indicates that there is some problem in the add-ins. So you can disable them one by one to find out which add-in is causing the problem and fix the issue. And don’t forget to re-enable the Add-ins which is necessary!

Fix – 3:- Create a new Outlook profile & import data

One more method to get rid of this error is to create a new Outlook profile and get the data by importing it from old PST file.

Find below steps to create new profile in Windows 10 or 8 or 7

1. Open Control Panel and select the Mail tab.
2. Click the Show Profiles and click Add, in the Mail Setup Outlook window.
3. Enter the new profile name.
4. Enter all the information like Email address, password, and name. Click the next.
5. Click the Finish.

Fix – 4:- Use ScanPst.exe to repair PST file

Run the built in Inbox Repair Tool to repair the Outlook Storage Data files. When you have a low level corruption in the data file, you can always go for this tool to recover the data.

1. Search Scanpst.exe in your machine and launch the tool.
2. Choose the default Outlook.pst file by clicking on the browse button.

In Outlook 2010, 2013 and 2016, the Outlook PST file will be found in the folder Documents\Outlook Files. In case you have upgraded from older version to Outlook 2010 on a machine which already had outlook data files, then you can look for the outlook.pst file in hidden folder in any of the below folders:

Windows XP: – “C:/Documents and Settings/user/Local Settings/Application Data/Microsoft/Outlook”

Windows 7, 8 and Vista: – “C:/Users/user/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Outlook”

Fix – 5:- Disable Compatibility mode:

Another possible cause for the outlook error may be due to the compatibility mode is on. Basically the compatibility mode helps the Outlook to run on old operating system.

Try to disable the Outlook compatibility mode and launch the Outlook and check whether the problem is solved or not. (This applies only for Outlook 2010 and 2013. 2016 does not support compatibility mode).

Follow below steps to turn off the compatibility mode:

1. Open Outlook.exe file on your machine.
   In Outlook 2013 file location will be “C:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office15/” or “C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Office/Office15/”
   In Outlook 2010 file location will be “C:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office14/” or “C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Office/Office14/”
2. Right-click on the Outlook.exe, select Properties.
3. Click on the Compatibility tab.
4. If any check boxes are checked, uncheck all of them, and then click Apply and OK.
5. Restart the MS Outlook.

Fix – 6:- Try EdbMails Outlook PST Repair Tool or OST to PST Converter tool (if connected to Server):

 

Quick Solution

EdbMails for OST to PST Converter is a free tool to convert orphaned OST Files to PST. Also, you can perform OST file migration to Live Exchange or to Office 365.

When all those manual procedures does not fix the issue, try the easy to use third party tool – EdbMails OST to PST Converter software to repair the corrupted OST file and recover all the data. You can easily convert your corrupted OST file to PST and extract the data like mails, contacts, calendar, tasks etc. It also does offline recovery. You can export data to PST, EML, MSG, HTML, MHT, TXT, RTF formats. If required, you can export the repaired data directly to Office 365 and to Live Exchange Server too. For more information on the tool and download, visit EdbMails OST to PST Converter

You can also try EdbMails Outlook PST repair tool to recover any corrupted PST file and extract all the information and save it back to PST format. You can also migrate the repair PST data to Office 365 or Live Exchange Server. For more details and to download the software visit EdbMails Outlook Repair Tool.

Import the new PST file to Outlook to use and access the recovered Outlook data directly.